


Confidantes

by unwindmyself



Series: curious shapes shift in the dark [37]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Female Friendship, Femslash, Fix-It, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Making Out, agency and choices!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1451434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jessica goes to look in on Nora, she's not really expecting things to turn out how they do, but then, Nora isn't exactly the most traditional when it comes to processing and dealing with emotions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confidantes

**Author's Note:**

> Part five, "Singers and the Endless Song."

Nora doesn’t have the door shut completely, which is her way of trying to say “no, really, I’m fine, I don’t need to be alone,” even though she completely does. She hears Pam escort Sookie and the fairy girls out (she gives a sigh of relief – it’s easier to manage the desire after a while, but not yet easy); she hears Tara drag Pam, starting to get a bit emotional herself, down the stairs and into their room (they slam the door, which means that Nora assumes that it’s going to be comfort sex until sunrise); she hears Eric hurry outside (he’s probably going to patrol the perimeter or something else like that, taking the time alone to feel whatever he’s too proud to show everyone else, she knows how he is).

She’s flopped belly-down on the unmade bed, but she means to use the time to think about the government shit. It’s their disaster, they made it for themselves because they got greedy and tomorrow night they’re going to fix it. But while usually planning and knowing things comes as a comfort to her, right now all she can seem to do is write _clean up the mess_ in her little notebook over and over.

“Nora?”

She lifts herself up, palms pressing into the mattress, and she’s both surprised and not to see Jessica in the doorway, eyebrows knitted, hands twisting in the balled-up fabric of her jacket, still looking a bit shaken up (how could someone blame her).

“What?” Nora asks, terse but very carefully not cold. She can play nice, at least.

“I, uh, I knocked, but you didn’t… so I just let myself…” Jessica’s voice trails off as she studies Nora more closely, and when she asks, “You okay?” it kinda sounds like she had a good idea of what to expect before she walked in.

Hurriedly, Nora swipes at her cheeks, hardly shocked to see the bloody residue left on her fingers. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying again, more even than she’d done before she had to excuse herself, but it makes sense.

She doesn’t feel entirely comfortable unloading all of this melancholia on Jessica, though, and she’s sure she wouldn’t know how (both of these were reasons she excused herself in the first place). Instead of doing so, she ducks her head to avoid the girl’s concerned gaze and mutters, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Jessica observes, sounding almost wry. “From out there, it sounded like you were talkin’ to yourself, all upset about – well.”

Nora makes a face. “I appreciate the concern,” she says, trying to keep her voice even and not at all unhinged (of course she was saying all that out loud, too), “But I don’t need your pity.”

Jessica sighs heavily, wondering not for the first time why she still makes an effort to befriend other vampires when it’s so clearly more trouble than it’s worth. (Then again, though, aren’t humans the same?) She knows, though, that she can’t very well back out now, so she won’t. “It’s not pity,” she ventures. “I just know how lonely it can feel.”

“I’m fine,” Nora says stubbornly, opting for attitude in lieu of honesty. “I’m trying to sort out final plans for tomorrow, since we got rather derailed, talking about –”

Yes, this is why honesty is a bad idea. She’s definitely crying again. Quietly this time, but it’s happening.

“Right,” Jessica murmurs, unconvinced. “It’s fine if you’re not fine, you know.”

Nora sits up, folds her arms over her chest, closes her little notebook. She’s not used to being pestered about her feelings like this, she’s rarely even held accountable for them by outside parties. “There’s nothing more to say,” she mutters.

“You sure?” Jessica asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed and dropping her jacket beside her.

This is a cultural difference and Nora knows it. When she was Jessica’s human age, she was already an adult, and in her day, friends weren’t nearly so much of an imperative; you talked to your mother or your sisters if you had them about serious things, your lover if you were old enough and lucky, or else you just shut up about it. It’s not like the human life Jessica had to whatever extent, where _gal pals_ to _confide in_ seem expected and doing that confiding is a sign of trust and fondness.

Therein lies the problem. Nora doesn’t trust. Not often, not easily. It’s nothing against Jessica, who’s been perfectly sweet to her (sweeter, surely, than she deserves). It’s just that she’s skittish.

But the redhead is unmoving beside her, head tilted, expression guileless. And the more that Nora looks at her, the more she starts to falter. Finally she moves to sit a bit closer as suits this sort of personal chat and murmurs, surprising even herself, “I’m thinking about all I’ve lost. Godric, but also – well.”

“Who?” Jessica prompts gently.

“Salome,” Nora whispers, instinctively reaching to toy with the necklace that’s no longer there.

Jessica nods slowly. She didn’t spend much time with the woman in question, but she’s hardly oblivious to her. “The one who Bill… y’know.”

The thought of it is like a silver knife in Nora’s heart. “Yes,” she says, sounding more detached than she feels. All of the anxiety she’s been trying to push back so they can get the job done, the irrational sadness, is coming right to the surface. “And if she hadn’t – and I hadn’t – none of this would have happened in the first place, and poor Molly! Molly died because of us too –”

“Who’s Molly?” Jessica asks.

“Another – well, she was employed by the Authority,” Nora explains. “It’s not important. She’s – she was…” _My protégé, sort of. My lover, or one of them. Possibly the closest thing I’ve had to progeny of my own. Casualty of my stupidity._ She can’t bring herself to say any of it, but she assumes Jessica will figure out the important parts. Anyway, she’s spiraling full-force now. “And Godric, if he’d – we hadn’t even spoken in months before he… and I’m not _angry_ , it just feels…”

“Unfair,” Jessica supplies. “You didn’t get a say.” She understands that feeling, at least.

“Right,” Nora murmurs, looking up with a sudden curiosity. “Eric got to say goodbye to him. Even Sookie got to say goodbye, and she’d hardly known him at all. I didn’t get to. I don’t ever get to. Not Godric, not Molly, not even Salome, not properly. I – I miss them.”

Jessica tilts her head. “Salome was the one who set this whole Lilith thing up,” she says.

“Yes, and she was wrong in that. If we weren’t dealing with Bill now, we’d be dealing with her, I’ve made my peace with that, but –”

“You’re mourning who she used to be,” Jessica fills in, and suddenly it dawns on her really and truly. It’s taken this long, but she finally thinks she gets it. “Who she was to you.”

“If she deserved the true death, we all did, we all played a part in this,” Nora mutters suddenly. “But Bill’s the one who took the blood. He’s the one who’s terrorizing the world, who prompted all this government bullshit, who’s got designs on a holy war. If he wants it, we’ll give it to him.”

“Nora, you’re scaring me,” Jessica whispers.

Nora isn’t listening, though. Not really. Her gaze is fixed on the wall, her hands are balled into fists. “You heard what Eric said,” she continues. She’s halfway between dreamy and icy. “He poisoned her because he was too weak to get rid of her otherwise, he needed her gone so he could –”

“ _Nora_!” Jessica shouts, hurrying to grab the other woman’s arm. “Nora, hey, I know. It’s – it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get it done.”

Something about the younger vampire’s touch sets Nora’s façade to cracking: she’s been sad, she’s been preoccupied, but she’s watched herself carefully lest she get hysterical, but that’s the point of no return she’s well past now as she collapses into herself. She has her face in her hands like a child as she weeps, and unsure of what to do, Jessica just waits.

“You’re right, you know,” Nora whispers when her tears have started to slow. “I’m too impulsive for my own good, I go spiraling –”

“Hey,” Jessica insists, soft as she can. “Don’t talk like that. It’s okay to get worked up sometimes.”

Nora laughs bitterly. “My getting worked up doesn’t have the greatest history,” she points out.

“Maybe not,” Jessica shrugs. “But if people were afraid of everything they’d had bad experiences with, nobody would get anything done.”

Tentatively, she goes to brush tears from Nora’s cheeks, then pat Nora’s shoulder, and she knows it shouldn’t shock her when Nora’s hand wraps around her own. “You know from experience, then?” Nora asks, somewhere between a friendly challenge and genuine curiosity.

“A little,” Jessica says. “A little just from observin’ – well, everyone.”

Nora can figure out what that means, who “everyone” comprises, and after a moment, she feels compelled to say, “I’m sorry that I inadvertently set your Maker on a path to ending humanity.” She’s not great at apologizing, but she feels like it’s about time she did.

Jessica does shrink at the mention, but she nods, sets her jaw resolutely. “It’s okay,” she says. “I mean, nobody _forced_ him to go crazy.”

“Still,” Nora maintains. “If I hadn’t…”

“Somethin’ else still might have.”

Jessica is just sitting there blinking at her, and Nora has to think how innocent she is. Even with all she’s been through (even just tonight – hell, she was being tortured), all she’s seen, she’s still willing to give second chances and listen, at least seemingly without ulterior motive. It takes a lot to really surprise Nora (so many years in this world have jaded her, she knows that, and it’s not as if she was ever surrounded by optimists) but somehow Jessica has.

Maybe that’s what accounts for Nora impulsively leaning close to Jessica, kissing her and trying with all her power to keep it soft and sweet (she’s not really good at that, but she does try).

Jessica’s eyes widen impossibly, her body goes rigid, but she doesn’t break away like Nora realizes she expected would happen. She lets the kiss end naturally and slowly, and when they’ve parted, she just touches her lips and whispers, “Oh,” more surprised than offended.

“Oh,” Nora agrees. She’s plenty capable of sensing discomfort, and she’s suddenly quite sure that this impulsiveness was the wrong move. “I won’t do that again, if you don’t want.”

“No,” Jessica rushes, “I’m just – I dunno.” She glances at her lap again, almost sheepish. “I’m just processing it, I guess.”

Nora understands that much. Not particularly well, but she can still remember her own first kiss with a woman, ages and ages ago, and she knows enough about Jessica to assume the various things she’s sorting through. “I see,” she says, and she means it to be patient and mostly it’s just awkward.

“You know, it’s okay,” Jessica exclaims. “I get it, I mean you’re – and you know, it’s.” Remembering her discussions with Tara and suddenly aware that if she keeps on vaguely like this, she might come off homophobic (biphobic? That’s a thing, right? That’s more appropriate to Nora) or at least ignorant, so she hurries to add, “You’re – I dunno, you’re sad, you’re panicking, you’re just reachin’ out.”

Nora scrunches her nose up, all disgruntled and apologetic, and it’s probably the _youngest_ that Jessica has ever seen her look. “I suspect it wasn’t appropriate of me to reach out in that way,” she says, which is her way of explaining that while it felt all right to her, she can imagine the more “normal” read of it, too.

“It’s fine,” Jessica insists, and maybe it’s that Nora seems oddly vulnerable right now (really, this whole night) and therefore a little less intimidating than usual, maybe it’s that she’s feeling a little lonely, maybe it’s intrigue or maybe it’s something else entirely, but she leans in and presses her lips back to Nora’s. Nothing weird about it.

They kiss for a little while – not too long, but long enough – and it does heat up a bit, Nora lets her hands trace over Jessica’s collarbone and behind her neck and down her back as Jessica inches closer and closer.  When they’ve stopped, Jessica scoots off the bed, grabs her jacket, and moves to the door. This isn’t weird, and she’s maybe even warming to the idea, but this is all she’s really up for right now.

Nora respects this, actually. She’s glad that Jessica is being very clear about it; she doesn’t enjoy forcing these things on anyone, double-so for those she appreciates genuinely, and she’s not surprised to realize that Jessica has shifted into that category.

“I’m gonna go, I think,” Jessica says, glancing back before she turns the doorknob. “If you wanna – you know, sometime if you wanna talk and... everything, just – lemme know, okay?”

“Okay,” Nora repeats, cursing how stupidly childish she sounds but managing to smile anyway. This is a tentative kind of peace, one she very much didn’t expect tonight, and maybe something will come of it and maybe something won’t, but that’s a worry for later.


End file.
